Baker's Magic (Middle-grade Novels)

by Zahler, Diane

  Captain Zay, who’d been the second one onto the tulip ship, ordered the lines cut, and then the pirate ship was free, speeding away from the emptied vessel, where the sailors stood open mouthed, shaking their fists. She waved merrily in return.

  “Until we are met again, gentlemens!” she cried.

  As the pirates bundled the baskets of tulip bulbs into the hold, Anika ran up to Wil. His face was pasty, and he stood with his hand on his sword while the others rushed around him.

  “Are you all right, Wil?” she asked.

  He blinked, seeming to wake from a dream. “I think so—yes, I’m fine,” he said. “That was—well, it was not what I expected.”

  “You are not injured, are you?”

  “No, not at all. I barely unsheathed my sword. But when those sailors pulled theirs out—my heart has never beat so hard! I thought it might spring right out of my chest. And Captain Zay—she cut one of the sailors. If she hadn’t … ” He closed his eyes, shuddering.

  “Was there blood?” Bee asked with great interest.

  “Of course there was!” Wil sounded rather cross. “He bled all over the place. I stepped in it.” He looked down at his boots. There was a smear of something on one of them. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his mouth and ran to the ship’s railing. Bee and Anika turned away as he deposited his supper in the sea.

  “The adventures of the gallant Hatless Pirate,” Bee scoffed, and Anika smacked her arm lightly.

  “Be courteous,” she chided. “I am sure I would have done the same.”

  Bee shook her head. Sometimes it was hard to remember that others had lived lives more protected than she. Wil may have seen his share of burns at the forge, but he probably hadn’t seen people bleed. On her long journey from Boomkin, Bee had come across a group of bandits robbing a merchant, and she’d hidden behind a hedge, almost afraid to breathe, as the chief bandit sliced off the tip of the merchant’s finger to force him to reveal the secret compartment in his trunk that held his coppers. That had been a lot of blood.

  Wil looked abashed when he came back to them, but his color was returning. “I think my days of swashbuckling may be over,” he said. “But I should help carry the baskets down.”

  “You were very bold,” Anika told him. “Though I still think it is wrong to steal the bulbs.”

  “The bulbs themselves are wrong,” Bee pointed out to Anika. “Your people should be growing crops—they should be growing trees. That way, they would benefit. Now, only Master Joris grows rich.”

  Anika sighed. “You are right. If I am queen—”

  “When,” Bee said. “Not if.”

  Anika looked at her, and a smile grew on her face, opening it like a flower. “When I am queen,” she said, “everything will be different.”

  Days passed amiably on the pirate ship as they sailed toward the Island of the Mages. Bee baked cookies and cakes; she couldn’t make tarts with the pots and pans Limmo had in the kitchen, but the pirates were heartily appreciative of the confections she turned out. It took some experimentation, but she managed a batch of Bouts Buns—different from the originals, for she had to use some of the pirates’ beer to make the dough rise, and she spiced them with cinnamon to mask the beery taste. Still, they were good enough that the pirates lifted her onto their shoulders and paraded her through the ship, nearly bashing out her brains on the low ceiling belowdecks. After that, Captain Zay demanded a bun each day with her coffee.

  While Bee was busy at the oven, Anika and Wil spent time together. Bee would see them as she passed from the galley to the captain’s cabin, bringing her an afternoon snack. They sat close together on the deck, talking seriously or playing with Pepin. Sometimes Wil held Anika’s hand.

  Curious, Bee pulled Wil aside one evening and asked him, “Are you falling in love with Anika?”

  He glared at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a princess, and I am a blacksmith. Of course I’m not in love with her!” But he flushed red to the tips of his ears and swatted at Bee as she dodged away from him.

  They played cards nightly with the pirates, learning euchre, primero, and knock rummy—as well as some colorful new language. The pirates bet with coins; Bee, Anika, and Wil used the rum balls Bee baked as their stake. It took a while before the pirates were comfortable beating the princess in their games, but she grew so wildly competitive that it wasn’t long before they were accusing her of card counting and mocking her for her inability to bluff. Captain Zay was often part of the games, and she played with great enthusiasm, tossing her hat in the air and threatening to keelhaul the pirates whose hands beat hers—which was most of them, most of the time. She was an exceptionally bad player.

  One afternoon, a tall, craggy island came into view. “There it is—the Island of the Mages,” Haleem told Bee. He passed her the spyglass so she could see it more clearly. Really, it was a mountain, with barren high cliffs rising from the sea. At the very top of the island, there was a building from which sprang towers and turrets and crenellations in a wild architecture, all made from the same dark rock that formed the forbidding bluffs.

  “How can we land?” Bee asked.

  “There’s a pier on the far side,” Haleem said. “We can send a skiff there safely.”

  Bee took a deep breath. “I wonder if they can see us yet.”

  “See you!” Haleem laughed in his low, rich voice. “They are mages—they don’t need to see you. They’ve probably known you were on your way since you first decided it.” Bee scowled at him. She didn’t like that idea at all. Her thoughts were her own, and she preferred to keep them to herself.

  “Their magic doesn’t work over water,” she told Haleem, remembering what the hedge wizard had said. “And even if they did know—they aren’t dangerous, are they?” She hoped that not all mages were like Master Joris.

  “I suppose they could be if they wanted,” Haleem said. “I met the mage of Tabira once, though, and he was really quite nice. He had a passion for birds, as I recall. Gave me a parrot. Now that parrot, he was dangerous! He hated everyone. Used to curse a blue streak, and nearly put my eye out more than once. I had to give him away myself—to a merchant who tried to cheat me at the market. Ha!” Bee grinned, imagining the deceitful merchant as he discovered the truth about his new pet.

  That day Bee baked some Bouts Buns with truth-telling in them, saying deliberately to Limmo as she stirred the batter, “Your stew is very good, but the potatoes are lumpy, and your bread is hard as nails.” He was quite annoyed until she showed him how to mix up a quick bread that didn’t need hours to rise and would be soft and tasty every time. When her hands were still dusted with the flour from this helpfulness, she baked a quick batch of cookies. If Master Joris was any indication, the mages on the island would be only slightly affected by her treats, but even a little bit of honesty and goodwill could be useful. She packed up the buns and cookies and stuffed them into her haversack. Then it was time to go.

  The entire pirate crew came out to see them off. “We shall be coming back this way tomorrow, after selling our ill-gotten bulbs,” Captain Zay told them. “If you are standing on the pier just like that, we pick you up. If not standing, we go on. We cannot be waiting for you. Tomorrow, at”—she squinted into the sun, which was partway down the sky—“quarter-past three. No later.”

  “We’ll be there,” Wil promised.

  “And you shall guard this princess well—with your life, Master Mooncalf!”

  Anika reached up and gave Captain Zay a soft kiss on her cheek, and the pirates cheered as the captain’s eyebrow went up as far as it was possible for an eyebrow to go. “Thank you,” Anika said softly. “You’ve saved us. You’ve saved me.”

  “Balderdash,” the captain said. But she was clearly very pleased.

  Wil, and then Anika, climbed down the rope ladder into the skiff, with Rijkie ready to row them to the long pier that jutted out
beyond the rocky shoreline. Bee was suddenly whirled around by a yank on her haversack. Captain Zay gripped the leather in her fist. “Not yet for you, Bee-girl. I am quite forgetting!”

  “Forgetting what?”

  “Where is my bun for the day?”

  Bee sighed. She knew she’d never get away without giving the captain her Bouts Bun. She pulled the pack around and rummaged inside for one of the buns she’d baked for the mages. “I’m sorry, Captain,” she said. “Here you are.”

  Captain Zay took the bun gleefully and released her hold on Bee’s haversack. As Bee climbed over the railing and down the ladder into the skiff, she smiled to herself, wondering who would have the harder task: she, Wil, and Anika facing the Council of Mages, or the pirate crew dealing with Captain Zay after she’d eaten a Bouts Bun baked full of truthfulness.

  CHAPTER 13

  As soon as the three travelers bid goodbye to Rijkie and stepped out of the boat, a figure appeared at the other end of the long dock. Bee could tell from the green robe that he was a hedge wizard. They walked toward him, and he bowed. He had sharp gray eyes in a friendly, open face, and straw-colored hair peeked from beneath his hood.

  “Welcome!” he said. “The masters saw you coming, and they’ve sent me to greet you.”

  “The masters?” Bee repeated. “Do you mean the mages?”

  “That’s right. They are my masters; I am their servant, Bartholomew.” The hedge wizard tucked his hands into his wide sleeves in the way that hedge wizards did, and bowed again.

  “I’m Bee. This is Wil. And this is Princess Anika of Aradyn.”

  “At your service, Your Highness,” Bartholomew said, bowing a third time.

  Anika put on her regal voice. “We have business with the mages,” she said. “Will they convene with us?”

  “Of course they will—though they are not much for business,” Bartholomew replied. “Please, do follow me. I will show you where you will be lodged, and you can have a bite to eat there if you wish, and a rest. Then I will take you to them.”

  They followed the hedge wizard off the pier and then up a steep flight of stone stairs that wound around and around the mountainside. Before long, the three of them were panting, though Bartholomew wasn’t at all breathless. The ground was rocky, and between the rocks flowers in strange colors and shapes grew. Even stranger insects buzzed among them. Bee saw a butterfly with what looked almost like a human head flitting among the blossoms. There were flowers with petals the color of the sea, green and deep blue and turquoise. Flowers that were gray with black bordered petals, and others that were different shades of brown, from tan to the color of coffee. They weren’t pretty, exactly, but they were interesting to look at.

  “What kind of flowers are these?” Wil asked, fascinated. He reached out to touch one of the brown ones and pulled back sharply. “Ouch!”

  “Yes, do be careful, young man. It has spines. One of our mages, Master Kajetan, likes to experiment with plants. I wouldn’t say he is entirely successful, but he entertains himself.”

  “And the bugs?” Anika said, peering at an enormous spider that had woven a sparkling pink web. Bee drew back in horror.

  “That’s Master Scipio’s project, Your Highness. I don’t really see the point myself, but it keeps him busy.”

  They had no breath left for questions as they continued up and up the stairs. Bee felt a little dizzy looking down; they were so far above the sea by now that the rocks below looked like pebbles. At last they reached a tall stone wall with a gate that Bartholomew pushed open.

  “No guard?” Bee panted.

  “Here?” Bartholomew smiled. “Who would we guard against? Nobody comes here. You are the first visitors we’ve had in … well, I couldn’t even say. A very long time.”

  They passed into a courtyard paved with gray bricks and stood gazing up at the structure. Bee wasn’t sure what to call it. “Is it … a palace?”

  “It’s the Council House,” Bartholomew said.

  “It’s rather vast for a house,” Anika pointed out.

  Bartholomew shrugged. “The mages live here and work here, and we do too—their servants, the hedge wizards and witches. It’s where the old ones go.”

  “You’re not that old,” Bee said.

  “I’m the youngest,” Bartholomew acknowledged. “But I chose to come here … for my own reasons.” Bee met his eyes and saw a sorrow there, one that was familiar to her. She had seen that same look in Anika’s eyes, and in her own once a year when she looked in the mirror. He had lost someone, she was sure. That was why he was there and not puttering around one of the island kingdoms doing his small magic.

  They pushed open the door and entered the Council House, passing an elderly hedge witch flapping a feather duster ineffectually over the furnishings in the entrance hall. It was an impressive room, tall and gloomy with long windows shaded by velvet hangings. The furniture was dark wood—Bee recognized it now—and there were intricately stitched tapestries on the wall showing strange, wondrous scenes. She walked up to one that showed a school of children, all wearing tall pointed hats, sitting in an enormous dining hall. In another, a boy battled with a figure that, from one angle, looked like a dragon and from another, looked like a ghostly version of himself. She exchanged a wide-eyed look with Wil.

  “This way, this way,” Bartholomew urged them. The hedge witch, her gray braid nearly long enough to trip her, didn’t even look up from her dusting. They followed Bartholomew down one dim hall and up a twisting staircase, then along another hall and another. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor. Finally he pushed open a creaking door. “You ladies can rest here, and the gentleman next door. I’ll come back for you in the morning. The mages have gone to bed.”

  “But it is barely dusk!” Bee protested.

  “They are old, and they retire early.”

  “You must get bored,” Wil said.

  The hedge wizard smiled, a little wearily. “It is not a life of great stimulation, that’s true. Now, you should have all you need in the rooms. If you want food or anything else, just say so. Loudly. They can be a little hard of hearing.”

  “Who can?” Bee asked.

  “Everyone here,” Bartholomew replied. Before Bee could say anything else, he bowed and left, and the three stood in the center of the room, gazing about. The ceiling was nearly as high as the one in the entrance hall, and under it was a huge canopied bed with maroon velvet bed hangings. The other furniture was equally massive and dark. It was the gloomiest room Bee could imagine.

  “Cozy,” Bee murmured.

  “I hope my room is just as welcoming,” Wil said. He opened a door behind the bed. “Oh, it is.”

  The girls ran over to the door and saw a chamber just like theirs, with dark green rather than maroon hangings. The furnishings were identical, from the gigantic bed to the oversized wardrobe to the ornate, tarnished silver mirror. “Well, at least they’re unsoiled,” Anika said doubtfully, turning back. She walked over to a table that held a pitcher and basin, but they were empty.

  “Bartholomew told us to ask for what we need,” Bee reminded her.

  Anika raised an eyebrow, then said, tentatively, “May we have some water?” Nothing happened.

  “Water!” Bee said loudly, and suddenly a little cloud appeared over the basin. A crackle of thunder came from it, and both girls backed away. A tiny bolt of lightning shot out of the cloud, hitting the table and singeing it. A finger of smoke rose up. Then the cloud began to rain onto the table. Quickly Bee ran forward and pushed the basin under the cloud, and swiftly the basin filled with water, overflowing onto the table and then the floor. “Stop!” Bee shouted, and as quickly as it had come, the cloud rolled away and disappeared.

  Wil stood watching from the doorway, his mouth hanging open. “That was a lot of trouble for a bowl of water,” he observed.

  Bee shook her h
ead. “These mages … ,” she began, but she didn’t know what else to say. Gray flowers, butterflies with human heads, a rain cloud in a bedroom—this was proving to be a very peculiar place. She dipped a finger in the water. “It feels like water,” she said, and splashed some on her face. After a moment’s hesitation Anika did the same.

  Wil came over and washed his hands in the basin. “I wonder what would happen if we called for food?”

  “We’d be crushed by a cast-iron stove descending from the ceiling, no doubt!” Bee said, and they laughed, a little uneasily.

  They spent a strange and restless night. They didn’t dare ask for food, and they didn’t want to eat the sweets in Bee’s backpack. Bee stretched out on the bed, which was more comfortable than it looked, and Wil sat in an enormous cushioned chair that made him look very small. Anika paced the room anxiously until Bee and Wil begged her to stop, and then she collapsed next to Bee. Pepin lay between them, his nose twitching in slumber. They dozed off and on all night, their sleep interrupted by dreams that woke them in a panic but disappeared immediately from memory. Odd noises sounded outside the window. At one point Bee could have sworn there was a bird in the room, flapping near the ceiling, but if there was, it wasn’t visible. At last Bee opened her eyes to see light outside the window. There was a knock at the door and Bartholomew poked his head in.

  “I trust the accommodations were to your liking?” he said. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were bright and amused. Bee decided she rather liked him.

  “Can we call on the mages now?” Anika asked, smoothing her dress. “We’ve journeyed a very long way.”

  “Yes, I know—and the mages know as well. They’re in the council chamber awaiting you.”

  Anika stuck Pepin in her pocket and took Bee’s hand in her cold hand. They collected Wil and followed Bartholomew down and around an endless series of hallways, even more labyrinthine than the palace in Zeewal. Each hall was identical to the last. Only the paintings on the walls were different, though all were portraits of mages in black robes, with long silver hair and eyes that seemed to follow them wherever they went.